An audio description of the Marc Chagall House-Museum has been presented in Vitebsk, BELTA correspondent reports.
An audio description of the Marc Chagall House-Museum has been presented in Vitebsk, BELTA correspondent reports.
The creation of an audio guide for visually impaired people to the artist's house-museum exhibition is one of the components of the joint Belarusian-Polish project "Development of Information and Art Adaptation Techniques for the Needs of the Blind and Deaf. Audio Description for Visually Impaired People in Museums, Theatres and Other Cultural Institutions".
Project coordinator Paulina Pełech, representing the Polish foundation Human Doc, noted that the project was implemented in two Belarusian museums – the National Art Museum (Minsk) and the Chagall House-Museum (Vitebsk). "We chose the Marc Chagall Museum because this artist is known all over the world, and is also loved in Poland. The museum director Irina Voronova immediately responded to our offer," noted Paulina Pełech.
"We hope that with this project we have managed to launch a kind of snowball effect. We have the first experience, and Belarusians will now be able to create audio descriptions for museum exhibitions and films themselves. We want to believe that this will be the case, because the people who took part in our training seminars are very active, creative, they have many ideas and plans. I think they can well continue to work in this direction," shared the project coordinator.
Answering BELTA correspondent's question about how she assesses the result of the joint work, Paulina Pełech noted that she is satisfied with the outcome. "We focused on conveying the atmosphere, describing the painting, while the museum focused on conveying emotions and historical moments. As a result, the audio description created for the Marc Chagall Museum is slightly different from the traditional one characteristic of Western countries. Belarusians have infused museum audio description with something of their own, which is understandable, and such national adaptation should be," the expert summarised.
The audio guide consists of 6 tracks recorded on tablets – these are descriptions of the house-museum, the shop, the boys' room, the living room, the red hall, and the kitchen. In addition, several exhibits are available for tactile examination.
One of the first visitors to try out the museum's new feature shared her impressions with journalists. "My eyesight isn't that bad yet. I can go everywhere on my own. But for the last five years, I've only used audiobooks. Reading is difficult for me now. I see objects in general terms. And when an audio recording gives you the details – that's wonderful. And if a person is totally blind, they only perceive sounds, receiving the main information precisely from words," said the museum visitor, expressing gratitude to everyone involved in creating the audio guide for the visually impaired.
The project was created and funded by the Warsaw-based Human Doc Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. Volunteers – employees of the Belarusian Association of the Visually Impaired and other organizations, who underwent training with their Polish colleagues – participated in its implementation.